Artist Bio:
Femi Kuti is the oldest son of the late Nigerian superstar Fela Kuti. Fela pioneered the sprawling big band sound called afrobeat. His 45-minute musical tirades against Nigeria's power elite lead to violent confrontations, and in 1984, the government jailed him on a trumped up currency charge. Femi, who had quit school to play alto sax in his father's band back in 1978, stepped up to lead the band for the next two years. In 1986, Fela returned and Femi split off to form his own group, Positive Force. Continuing in the afrobeat tradition, Femi built around a solid, six-piece horn section and two strong percussionists. With guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, and four singer/dancers, his band numbered 17. Like Fela, Femi sang about power politics, but with a lighter touch, and in briefer form.
While Fela was still active and on the scene, Femi was constantly being compared to his father. Femi said in a 1995 interview, "It's like a challenge for me. I know I have a lot to live up to. So if I find that my father works two hours a day, I will work eight hours a day." The work paid off. After an initial period of skepticism, Fela became a fan of his son's music, and Positive Force won a solid following in Nigeria. The band completed six European tours and recorded two albums in Nigeria between 1988 and 1994, and another in Paris in 1995. Then Femi and Positive Force debuted in the U.S. as part of the 1995 Africa Fête tour.
Femi's biggest breaks came after his father's death from AIDS in 1997. As the inheritor of the afrobeat mantle, Femi found himself in demand everywhere. He had honed his composing and arranging skills and was rewarded by a record deal with MCA for his excellent 1999 release, Shoki Shoki.
Like his father, Femi speaks his mind in plain terms. "Blackman Know Yourself" probes the consciences of black people worldwide. "Sorry Sorry" decries the disaster of Nigeria's--and by extension, Africa's--sad and bloody political history. Oddly enough, the only time a song has landed Femi in official trouble was when he sang a playful number about sex, "Beng, Beng, Beng."
Femi abhors the Nigerian government's 1999 decision to ban the song. He sees in it evidence of a regime afraid to address sexual issues. "It's just in the past three months that we have a serious campaign against AIDS," says Femi. "And now they want to use me as an ambassador. They want me to criticize my father. I tell them, 'Excuse me. It's not about criticizing my father. You say you want people to come out and say when they have the disease, and then you lambaste the people who come out.'"
Since the release of Shoki Shoki, Femi has toured Europe and the US repeatedly. In 2001 he released his follow-up to Shoki Shoki, titled Fight to Win and in 2004 he released a Live at the Shrine, a live album/ DVD package that showcased his weekly Sunday night shows at his club in Lagos. – Banning Eyre, Courtesy Afropop Worldwide: www.afropop.org
